Me and Homemade Bread

The one food that I rarely attempt to make is bread.  Why should I when I can find freshly baked bread all over town??

Besides, my first bread baking experience destroyed my confidence in bread making.  I remembered my first attempt was after watching this bread baking show.  The baker made it looked so easy.  He demonstrated how: add this and that, knead, roll, make little round balls, connect them, let them rise, bake and voila, you have a teddy bear shape bread.  Tie a bow around the bread-bear neck and you can parade it around.  Easy, I thought.  So I followed all the steps - even connected the balls - and I ended up with a bear-shape rock!!!  Ugh!  NEVER AGAIN.  I was 18 or so years old then.  Many many moons ago...

Fast forward to few years later...department stores started selling bread machines in the late 90s.  I got one from Macy's.  I told my family that we were going to have homemade bread from now on. They laughed their heads off, but we were very curious how that little bread machine worked.

I followed the instruction precisely.  The machine was amazing. I just had to measure and add the ingredients in order and hit the start button.  The first bread that I ever made - with the machine - was a basic white bread.  And the first loaf was a success!  Oh My God!  I thought I did it!  Then, the second loaf was a flap.  It didn't even rise.  What a let down.

It's hit-or-miss.  To make life easy, I switched to bread mix for a while.  Yes, it was big time cheating but it guaranteed perfect bread every time.  Just pour the content from the box into the bread machine and add water.  I couldn't go wrong.  The bread would come out great but I get no satisfaction. Too boring. I then put away the bread machine.  I use it few times a year and that is it.

A Break through.  Couple of years ago, I saw this WORLD'S BEST cinnamon roll recipe that was designed for bread machine and I just had to give it a try.  The machine made the dough and I did the rolling and the baking.  The cinnamon roll was a big success.  The second one was still a success and the third too.  Wow!  I rebuilt my confidence and reconnected with my bread machine.  It was put back to work doing all the kneading and I have been baking different breads but with an asterisk: *Machine kneads dough. 

But wait!  I had another break through last week.  I actually made bread (OK, buns)  from scratch!  Look mom, no bread machine!!   I actually handled the yeast!!  I haven't done that since I made that bear-shape hard as rock bread so long ago.  I was worry that I would kill the yeast but my first old-fashion pull apart buns looked very lovely.  Wow... Is this for real now?  Am I finally on the road to true homemade breads?  Well, there is only one way to find out.

So, I think the bread machine is going back to storage again.